Every family has a favorite film to gather around the TV and experience
during the holiday season. For some, it's A CHRISTMAS STORY, others hold IT'S
A WONDERFUL LIFE dear to their hearts. But lost in the shuffle is an incredibly
enjoyable, yet hopelessly inept little low-budget gem entitled SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS
THE MARTIANS. This is my family's annual favorite, and fans of this "classic"
can now revel in the fact that it has arrived full-blast on blu-ray disc.

The children of Mars fall into a bout of depression after viewing "Earth
programs" starring Santa Claus and his North Pole workshop. Kimar (Leonard
Hicks), the leader of Mars along with his wife Momar (Leila Martin), listens
to words of wisdom from a thousand-year-old prophet and embarks on a quest to
kidnap Santa Claus, ensuring that every Martian child's Christmas will be bright.
After abducting two Earth children, Billy (Victor Stiles) and Betty (Donna Conforti),
and forcing them to lead the spaceship to Santa Claus, the jolly old soul (John
Call, who looks and acts drunk for the entire running time of the film) falls
victim to the Martians' Whammo air blasters and their giant robot Torg!! Back
on Mars, Santa's hard work at a special mechanized workshop is endangered by
the evil mustachioed Voldar (Vincent Beck, memorable on episodes of “Gilligan’s
Island" and “The Monkees”). And don't even get me started on
Dropo (Bill McCutcheon, later a regular on “Sesame Street”), "the
laziest man on Mars" who somehow manages to pass himself off as Santa despite
sporting a huge antenna on his head!!

Imagine seeing SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS in a kiddie matinee
every Christmas!! While not nearly as insane as the Mexican import SANTA CLAUS
(released on blu-ray by VCI last year), MARTIANS still manages to boggle the
mind in its scant 81-minute running time. The Martian people wear giant antennae
on their heads, have green makeup smeared all over their faces (most of the
time it's dripping off under the studio lights), and eat their food in pill
form. ("And a special treat for the children, chocolate layer cake pills.")
As I mentioned before, Santa Claus is a jovial old soul, but any adult viewer
and many a young viewer will be hard-pressed to explain his drunken behavior.
Cracking lame jokes, facing danger with a "fiddle dee dee," and giving
long-winded speeches at the drop of a hat, he still manages to be as funny as
he aims to be for all the wrong reasons. The child actors are likable enough,
but it's obvious they were trained on the stage (the two leads were recruited
from the childrens' chorus of OLIVER!, as was John 'Santa Claus' Call, who played
a doctor in the play). And I defy you to get the theme song "Hooray for
Santy Claus" out of your head! A 45 RPM record of the Milton DeLugg theme
was issued along with a comic book based on the film; both items collect top
dollar among collectors today.

Nicholas Webster's off-the-wall kiddie klassic gained a resurgence
in popularity in the mid-1980s when Pia Zadora (seen here as 'Girmar', a Martian
girl) won a Golden Globe and continued to appear in big-budget sleaze epics.
John Waters gave it a glowing review in one of his essays, and he watches it
every Christmas. But the film should really be appreciated for its other qualities:
some pretty inventive art design despite a criminally low budget, lots of Air
Force stock footage, a catchy Milton DeLugg score, an aura of fun and bewilderment,
and a final showdown featuring a bubble machine, toys that attack, wild kids,
and an insanely laughing Santa Claus!! SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS was
shot on Long Island (reportedly in an old airplane hangar), just a stones throw
away where these words are being typed (other “bad” movies with
scenes shot on Long Island include FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE SPACE MONSTER, THE
FLESH EATERS and WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON!). Anyone who is an avid TV gazer will
recognize character actor Ned Wertimer as the lively TV reporter Andy Henderson,
as he played the doorman on “The Jeffersons” for nearly a decade.

Originally released theatrically by Joseph E. Levine’s Avco Embassy
Pictures, SANTA CLAUS has somehow fallen into the public domain and has been
subject to a handful of budget DVD releases, most of which utilize a faded transfer
which is missing the opening bars of the theme song and several credit titles,
including the title card. Although this blu-ray presentation is not perfect,
it’s the best the film has ever looked oh home video by a long shot. Presented
in a 1080p transfer and framed at 1.33:1 (which looks most appropriate), the
print source is uncut (with the full opening Avco Embassy logo intact) and colors
come through on screen vivid throughout. The print source has its share of debris
and speckling, and the image is occasionally a tad soft, but the transfer looks
acceptable overall. The mono English audio is also fine, with no noticeable
defects. Original pressing of the discs contained a print running only 69 minutes,
but Kino immediately recalled that run and the newly pressed discs now run the
proper 81 minutes.

The best extra on the disc
is a 45-minute Christmas-themed “archival reel” consisting of nostalgic
animation, short films and cinema adverts from previous decades. Most of it
in very nice quality, highlights include a nice rendering of the classic original
“Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” cartoon and a nice black &
white bit featuring Abbott and Costello and Charles Laughton. The trailer included
here is newly designed one for this blu-ray release, and the still gallery just
features a handful of ordinary black and white and color shots from the film.
We would have loved to see a reproduction of the aforementioned comic book here,
but… Even so, fans should not hesitate to grab this disc up ASAP before
the 25th of December! "Hooray for Santy Claus!" (Casey
Scott and George R. Reis)